Moderation

[Catzsy]

It already is down to personal judgement though. People can post avoiding the filter in the feedback section in some instances, however when I partially avoided the filter in my example, it was deemed as avoiding the filter.

I think it's down to the context, surely, if it's being used appropriately then there shouldn't be an issue with it, even though it is avoiding the filter, if that word is unoffensive and used it it's proper context there shouldn't be an issue with it. Although, this gives moderators extra work and maybe they can't be bothered to look into the context of everything properly.

It is not a case of 'not being bothered'. If we were allowed to judge the 'context' in which it was used then we would moderate to that.

[The Don]

It is not a case of 'not being bothered'. If we were allowed to judge the 'context' in which it was used then we would moderate to that.

Then what's stopping this from happening? (Sorry if it's already been mentioned, only read a few posts in this thread)

[Catzsy]

Then what's stopping this from happening? (Sorry if it's already been mentioned, only read a few posts in this thread)

Well if management and Jin agreed, I guess nothing,

[GommeInc]

We are replying to you. You don't like our replies and therefore are simply ignoring what we are saying.

If you had read my previous post, yes, people can avoid the filter in an innocent manner, but:

1. The forum software is incapable of interpreting context therefore will filter words verbatim as instructed by the filtered words list.

2. In its own principle, if we allowed users to avoid the filter in any fashion we would be encouraging members to use the filtered words more frequently, and we would be hard pressed not to uphold a double standard because it would then be at the moderators descretion when certain filtered words are used out of context, and as the conclusion to this can be controversial in any given scenario, we would be causing more problems than we would have fixed.

This is the first response I have had that actually answers some questions.

1. Naturally, it's a system - it doesn't think it simply does.

2. Depends in what context. If it's appropriate like what I have done in the past, then it's fine. If members try to avoid the filter for the sake of it, then nearly all the time they will be met with the inappropriate rule. This is why inappropriate posting and avoiding the filter were merged together, as avoiding the filter can only be inappropriate, you cannot warn a member for avoiding the filter simply because they did, as that doesn't make any sense. The response I have got from management has nearly always been a robotic, frustrating response of "You avoided the filtered". Why? "Because you did." Hence why I ignore the posts of certain individuals because they seem to lack basic literacy skills, and fail to answer questions in a clear, succinct manner, which has and always gets management in trouble. They teeter about, running around like headless chickens.

Also, moderator discretion doesn't exist. I know full well of that and have experience of it - they like to blindly warn, saying they have no control - like a certain Super Moderator I know who got pushed about this and said they couldn't do anything about it, when they do they have moderator discretion :rolleyes:

3. I do agree a personal response is best and I feel that is what you get and have got. Every forum has rules and regulations to follow. We moderate to those or should we just be doing what the **** we like? LOL The members would not know where they were or be able to challenge what we do if it was all down to personal judgement. That could lead down quite a dangerous road as we have to be accountable for what we do too and without these guidelines there could be abuse of power and favourtism. If we had let you off using that word and sanctioned others then it would not look good at all and would have sent the wrong impression to everybody. We have to moderate by the rules and if the management decided to make an exception that this word could be used unless it contravenes Rule A2.then we would moderate to that. We do not have any moderator discretion when it comes to words in the filter only to the penalty we issue. If I had issued a Infraction for that I would agree you should be feel aggrieved. If you feel that this is another 'robotic' response then I will ask the management to write us scripts because we might as well become robots.

Again you go on some sub-rant. I didn't say scrap the system and just go by personal judgement. Again, you're being pointless to talk to as you seem to make up arguments and try to defame me, when really you're just looking silly. It wouldn't be favouritism at all - if it's used appropriately and in context it is fine, if others argue that they can't get away with it (if they're clearly offending people) then simply state the obvious - it wasn't appropriate. If people start calling each other mustard children then obviously it's offensive, but if people start calling Windows Vista the mustard child of Microsoft then how on earth can they take offense to that? No one did as far as I am aware, because I asked what people thought in feedback. The only people who cared were the robots saying "It's avoiding the filter, it must be punished" when the post was alright - Oli said that and so did you :/ No one found it offensive and no one can take it as an offense as it is used professionally. My course books have it to describe products that do not act like the predecessors or succcessors.

[Cwmbran]

At the end of the day not many words are offensive, its the context in which these words are used that makes them offensive. Racial slang for a black person, that I would say is offensive and one of the few words which are.

I believe to some degree we should be allowed to avoid the filter (please note im not asking for anything to be removed from the filter) for example if I was to post a thread saying "F*** me hard day at work" Who can honestly hold up their hand and say they were offended by that? In this instance surely it should be fine to avoid the filter after all im only expressing myself and not directing it towards anyone. You could argue why I would need to say that particular word, in an instance like that "Crickey hard day at work" just doesnt cut it. I dont think I need to go into examples such as a sha.g rug as I'm sure you get the jist of what im trying to say.

I agree with Gomme, moderation on this rule is robotic. I personally have not come across any post where someone has avoided the filter in an acceptable way and it has just been left alone, they always get edited.

[The Don]

At the end of the day not many words are offensive, its the context in which these words are used that makes them offensive. Racial slang for a black person, that I would say is offensive and one of the few words which are.

I believe to some degree we should be allowed to avoid the filter (please note im not asking for anything to be removed from the filter) for example if I was to post a thread saying "F*** me hard day at work" Who can honestly hold up their hand and say they were offended by that? In this instance surely it should be fine to avoid the filter after all im only expressing myself and not directing it towards anyone. You could argue why I would need to say that particular word, in an instance like that "Crickey hard day at work" just doesnt cut it. I dont think I need to go into examples such as a sha.g rug as I'm sure you get the jist of what im trying to say.

I agree with Gomme, moderation on this rule is robotic. I personally have not come across any post where someone has avoided the filter in an acceptable way and it has just been left alone, they always get edited.

100% agreed.

I used a quote from a film in a feedback thread to try and get a point across that even 12A's allow swearing. The quote I used was removed, even though it was already censored 'F**K' Honestly, who is that harming, it's just as harmful as wtf which is allowed.

[e5]

Am I right in reading that if someone posts a swear word that appears in asterix (*) i.e being filtered, that their post gets edited for being innapropriate? :S

[HotelUser]

This is the first response I have had that actually answers some questions.

1. Naturally, it's a system - it doesn't think it simply does.

2. Depends in what context. If it's appropriate like what I have done in the past, then it's fine. If members try to avoid the filter for the sake of it, then nearly all the time they will be met with the inappropriate rule. This is why inappropriate posting and avoiding the filter were merged together, as avoiding the filter can only be inappropriate, you cannot warn a member for avoiding the filter simply because they did, as that doesn't make any sense. The response I have got from management has nearly always been a robotic, frustrating response of "You avoided the filtered". Why? "Because you did." Hence why I ignore the posts of certain individuals because they seem to lack basic literacy skills, and fail to answer questions in a clear, succinct manner, which has and always gets management in trouble. They teeter about, running around like headless chickens.

Also, moderator discretion doesn't exist. I know full well of that and have experience of it - they like to blindly warn, saying they have no control - like a certain Super Moderator I know who got pushed about this and said they couldn't do anything about it, when they do they have moderator discretion :rolleyes:


Again you go on some sub-rant. I didn't say scrap the system and just go by personal judgement. Again, you're being pointless to talk to as you seem to make up arguments and try to defame me, when really you're just looking silly. It wouldn't be favouritism at all - if it's used appropriately and in context it is fine, if others argue that they can't get away with it (if they're clearly offending people) then simply state the obvious - it wasn't appropriate. If people start calling each other mustard children then obviously it's offensive, but if people start calling Windows Vista the mustard child of Microsoft then how on earth can they take offense to that? No one did as far as I am aware, because I asked what people thought in feedback. The only people who cared were the robots saying "It's avoiding the filter, it must be punished" when the post was alright - Oli said that and so did you :/ No one found it offensive and no one can take it as an offense as it is used professionally. My course books have it to describe products that do not act like the predecessors or succcessors.

Naturally someone would be offended if you used that (mustard) term with regards to them, and not to Vista, because you're directing it at another person, not a fairly disliked operating system (Hi Tom!). But the problem here is the term "mustard child" isn't close to being as well known, or commonly used as the F word or other common inappropriate words. We don't have to consider adding that to the filter at this moment because it's not exactly a commonly used phrase.

With regards to vBulletin, yes it is a system and it is the only robot here. I mentioned this to explain why we cannot unfilter words such as the D word because even though it's a name and will appropriately be used in that context, it will be abused in another context. I believe Richard created a thread on this not too long ago and this was likely explained similarly in that as well. It is unfortunate that we cannot use it in its righteous context though we wont unfilter words such as this because of their negative implications.

With regards to what you're saying about robotic moderation I think you mean moderator's communications to users are quite generic / verbatim and that's a fair opinion to have. What's bothering Rosie, I think, (and rightly so) is that you're using the term robotic in a way such that you are almost inferring that she and the moderation team are mindless and incapable of thinking for themselves. If this is actually your real opinion (and I'd deplore it if that's the case) then I'd strongly encourage you to consider just how many moderation actions a moderator, especially a super moderator, makes a day. I have the utmost confidence in especially the SMOD team at the moment. They have a great deal of experience, and for the most part don't make many errors. In terms of their approach, and how accurately they're enforcing forum rules I'd say they're pretty spot on.

At the end of the day not many words are offensive, its the context in which these words are used that makes them offensive. Racial slang for a black person, that I would say is offensive and one of the few words which are.

I believe to some degree we should be allowed to avoid the filter (please note im not asking for anything to be removed from the filter) for example if I was to post a thread saying "F*** me hard day at work" Who can honestly hold up their hand and say they were offended by that? In this instance surely it should be fine to avoid the filter after all im only expressing myself and not directing it towards anyone. You could argue why I would need to say that particular word, in an instance like that "Crickey hard day at work" just doesnt cut it. I dont think I need to go into examples such as a sha.g rug as I'm sure you get the jist of what im trying to say.

I agree with Gomme, moderation on this rule is robotic. I personally have not come across any post where someone has avoided the filter in an acceptable way and it has just been left alone, they always get edited.

The interesting thing here though, is that it's quite seldom that moderators actually have to enforce the avoiding the filter rule. Recently there's been a surplus of edits because of users breaking the rule (partly out of protest, I think ). Under normal circumstances I wouldn't say there's a problem with how the rule is enforced. I'd of said your variation of saying the F word as you did above was quite mild. That's not to say it's still not a direct representation of filter avoidance!

100% agreed.

I used a quote from a film in a feedback thread to try and get a point across that even 12A's allow swearing. The quote I used was removed, even though it was already censored 'F**K' Honestly, who is that harming, it's just as harmful as wtf which is allowed.

Cwmbran used it in a practical example, where as when you did it contributed nothing to your stance.

Am I right in reading that if someone posts a swear word that appears in asterix (*) i.e being filtered, that their post gets edited for being innapropriate? :S

If someone types the full swear word out, and the vBulletin language filter converts it to all asterix characters then it's okay. It's only when members intentionally prevent the filter from doing this that they see trouble.

[e5]

Thank god. I was about to screw.

[The Don]

Naturally someone would be offended if you used that (mustard) term with regards to them, and not to Vista, because you're directing it at another person, not a fairly disliked operating system (Hi Tom!). But the problem here is the term "mustard child" isn't close to being as well known, or commonly used as the F word or other common inappropriate words. We don't have to consider adding that to the filter at this moment because it's not exactly a commonly used phrase.

With regards to vBulletin, yes it is a system and it is the only robot here. I mentioned this to explain why we cannot unfilter words such as the D word because even though it's a name and will appropriately be used in that context, it will be abused in another context. I believe Richard created a thread on this not too long ago and this was likely explained similarly in that as well. It is unfortunate that we cannot use it in its righteous context though we wont unfilter words such as this because of their negative implications.

With regards to what you're saying about robotic moderation I think you mean moderator's communications to users are quite generic / verbatim and that's a fair opinion to have. What's bothering Rosie, I think, (and rightly so) is that you're using the term robotic in a way such that you are almost inferring that she and the moderation team are mindless and incapable of thinking for themselves. If this is actually your real opinion (and I'd deplore it if that's the case) then I'd strongly encourage you to consider just how many moderation actions a moderator, especially a super moderator, makes a day. I have the utmost confidence in especially the SMOD team at the moment. They have a great deal of experience, and for the most part don't make many errors. In terms of their approach, and how accurately they're enforcing forum rules I'd say they're pretty spot on.



The interesting thing here though, is that it's quite seldom that moderators actually have to enforce the avoiding the filter rule. Recently there's been a surplus of edits because of users breaking the rule (partly out of protest, I think ). Under normal circumstances I wouldn't say there's a problem with how the rule is enforced. I'd of said your variation of saying the F word as you did above was quite mild. That's not to say it's still not a direct representation of filter avoidance!



Cwmbran used it in a practical example, where as when you did it contributed nothing to your stance.



If someone types the full swear word out, and the vBulletin language filter converts it to all asterix characters then it's okay. It's only when members intentionally prevent the filter from doing this that they see trouble.

I used it show which word I meant. quite a few four lettered words have been filtered.